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Courses Offered
Peabody at Homewood offers a variety of Musicology and Music Theory courses, taught by Peabody professors, on the Homewood campus. Classes may be taken for elective credit and may be applied to the minor in music.
Music Theory
To enroll in a music theory class, sign up for the class that seems most appropriate to your skill level and background. During the first class, placement exams will be given to ensure that you are in the correct course.
SACRE (Speed And Competency Rudiments Examination) is a twenty minute test to determine your fluency with clefs, key signatures, scales, chords, and more. Results determine placement in Rudiments or Music Theory and Musicianship 1. You can obtain a sample exam here.
AP-Ugrad tests part-writing and harmonic analysis. You will provide a harmonic analysis of an excerpt, realize a figured bass, and compose a contrapuntal exercise. Results determine placement in Music Theory and Musicianship 1 or 2. You can obtain a sample exam here.
376.111 Rudiments of Music Theory and Musicianship
This course introduces written and aural fundamentals including notation, scales, intervals, chords, rhythm, meter, and sightsinging. Composition of melodies and short pieces as well as listening projects will be undertaken. There are no prerequisites for this course.
Staff 3 credits
376.211 Music Theory and Musicianship I
Introduction to basic principles of tonal music through listening, analysis, and music making. Students will study melody, harmony, voice leading, figured bass and dissonance treatment, and will also undertake short composition projects. Prerequisite: qualifying examination or Rudiments of Music Theory and Musicianship.
Staff 3 credits
376.212 Music Theory and Musicianship II
This course continues the aural and written work of the previous course, but focuses on chromatic harmony while continuing the study of melody, counterpoint, and figured bass. Prerequisite: Music Theory and Musicianship I.
Staff 3 credits
376.214 Music Theory III - Formal Analysis
An examination of the musical forms of the Common Practice Period and the logic of their structures. Forms studied will include variation, binary, rounded binary, ternary, rondo, sonata-allegro, and sonata-rondo. Prerequisite: Music Theory and Musicianship II.
Staff 3 credits
376.215 Music Theory III - Twentieth Century Music
An exploration of the music and analytical tools of the twentieth century. Topics will include set analysis, serial techniques, exotic and synthetic scales, neo-tonality, and geometric proportions. Prerequisite: Music Theory and Musicianship II.
Staff 3 credits
376.216 Music Theory III - Counterpoint
A study of contrapuntal music, emphasizing composition in both the sixteenth- and eighteenth-century styles as epitomized by Palestrina and Bach. Prerequisite: Music Theory and Musicianship II.
Staff 3 credits
376.217 Music Theory III - Song
An examination of text-setting and song-writing in a variety of eras and styles. Topics will include art song, lieder, jazz standards, and pop tunes. Prerequisite: Music Theory and Musicianship II.
Staff 3 credits
Musicology
A study of Musicology usually begins with Introduction to Western Classical Music, which provides a survey of Western music throughout the ages. Once this broad picture is obtained, students then choose to focus on more specific seminars. The Intro class is not required for later seminars, and is not necessary for a course such as Intro to Popular Music, but this general order helps students place the more specific seminars in an appropriate context.
376.231 (H) Introduction to Western Classical Music
Students will learn aural strategies to focus their listening, as well as vocabulary, cultural, and historical context for music of the baroque, classical, Romantic, and 20th-century periods. Composers studied will include Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Brahms, Debussy, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky.
Talle 3 credits
376.242 (H) Introduction to Popular Music
A survey of the stylistic features and social contexts of American popular music since the 1950s.
Staff 3 credits
376.340 (H) Music and Literature: Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus
A study of Thomas Mann's novel, supplemented through a detailed examination of the many works mentioned in the text. In studying pieces of Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, Wagner, Schoenberg, and others, we will sketch out an historical and aesthetic context essential to an understanding of the book. Students should possess a basic knowledge of twentieth-century European history. The ability to read music, while certainly helpful, is not required. All course readings and discussion will be conducted in English
Giarusso 3 credits
376.401 (H) Music and Ritual
An examination of the role of music in ritual performance, with emphasis on indigenous music theories and ethnoaesthetics. Examples will be drawn from a variety of ethnographic contexts.
Tolbert 3 credits
376.404 (H,W) A History of Musical Instruments
A study of the evolution of musical instruments and their functions from the earliest manifestations of rhythmic sound in prehistoric civilization to the most sophisticated electronic instruments of the 20th century, fusing the disciplines of music, anthropology, and the visual arts. Trips to museums and galleries will include a visit to the Instrumental Collections of the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian.
Weiss 3 credits
376.407 (H) (W) Music and Evolution
This course will examine the bio-cultural evolution of music in light of recent interdisciplinary research on the social bases of human cognitive evolution, and explore its implications for current debates in musicology, ethnomusicology, psychology of music, and human cognitive evolution.
Tolbert 3 credits
